The real story of the SS, unlike its popular mythology, is so complex as to almost defy belief: it is a tale of intrigue and nepotism, of archaeology and Teutonism, of art and symbolism. Himmler's SS is a story of street fighters and convicted criminals becoming Ministers of State and police commanders; the story of charitable works and mass extermination being administered from the same building; the story of boy generals directing vast heterogeneous armies on de...

'The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love - only for their fear.'- Heinrich HimmlerThe Schutzstaffel, or SS - the brutal elite of the Nazi Party - was founded by Hitler in 1925 to be his personal bodyguard. From 1929 it was headed by Heinrich Himmler, who built its numbers up from under 300 to well over a million by 1945 as the SS grew to be the backbone of Nazi Germany, ta...

From its creation in 1933 until Hitler's death in May 1945, anyone living in Nazi-controlled territory lived in fear of a visit from the Gestapo an abbreviation of Geheime Staatspolizei or secret state police. Young or old, rich or poor, nobody was beyond the attentions of a brutally efficient organization that spread its malign influence into every corner of Europe in the wake of the all-conquering German armed forces. The Gestapo offers a detailed history of this evil operation commanded...

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.In 1917 the world changed forever. One of the most influential and contentious events in recent history, the Russian Revolution unleashed the greatest political experiment ever conducted, one which continues to influence both Eastern and Western politics today.The Russian Revolution: History in an Hour neatly covers all the major facts and events giving you a clear and straightforward overview: from the circumstances beh...

Between 1933 and 1945, more than 500,000 German citizens resisted the Nazi government. Many were imprisoned for political crimes which included both active attempts to remove Hitler from office and passive attempts to oppose the Nazi regime. Resistance was found among university students, churches and even in the German military.This fascinating and compelling history of the German resistance covers groups and methods from underground newspapers such as "Rote Kapella" and "Internal...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Were World Wars I and II inevitable? Were they necessary wars? Or were they products of calamitous failures of judgment?In this monumental and provocative history, Patrick Buchanan makes the case that, if not for the blunders of British statesmen—Winston Churchill first among them—the horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust might have been avoided and the British Empire might never have collapsed into ruins. Half a century o...

A revealing look at the life of one of Hitler’s most notorious generals.Notorious and alluring, Sepp Dietrich the man is impossible to separate from Sepp Dietrich the General. An effective and admired military commander who was awarded twenty-four different honors during his service to the Nazi Party, Dietrich was known for his devotion to his men, leading them through some of the fiercest fighting and harshest conditions experienced during the war. Close to the he...

**An absorbing, revelatory, and definitive account of one of the greatest tragedies in human history, by the author of The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, and Hitler's People“This is history in the grand style, the kind of large-scale narrative that few historians dare to write these days. It is difficult to imagine how it could be improved upon, let alone surpassed.” —The Washington Post"This superb book is n...

Marshal Georgy Zhukov is one of military history's legendary names. He played a decisive role in the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk that brought down the Nazi regime. He was the first of the Allied generals to enter Berlin and it was he who took the German surrender.He led the huge victory parade in Red Square, riding a white horse, and in doing so, dangerously provoking Stalin's envy. His post-war career was equally eventful – Zhukov found himself sacked and banished twice, and w...

This is the illustrated history of the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front. The life and death of the Waffen SS can be traced in the surviving photographs, and the brooding saga of the decline from triumph into disaster is told through these powerful images which clearly document the reality of combat on the Russian Front. These rare images capture the optimism of opening stage of the war and the challenges of Barbarossa more clearly than words can ever tell. The seasons of mud and the white he...

The newest immensely original undertaking from the historian who gave us the defining two-volume portrait of Hitler, Fateful Choices puts Ian Kershaw's analytical and storytelling gifts on dazzling display. From May 1940 to December 1941, the leaders of the world's six major powers made a series of related decisions that determined the final outcome of World War II and shaped the course of human destiny. As the author examines the connected stories of these profound choices, he re...

Defined by the messianic, iconic figure of Adolf Hitler, the twelve years of the Third Reich were one of the pivotal periods of the modern age. From small beginnings in the 1920s, the Nazi Party rose to a position of absolute power in Germany, bringing with it the militarization of society, the apparatus of state terror and vicious discrimination against political opponents, the gypsies, homosexuals, and, above all, the Jews. Hitler's ambition thrust the world into a destructive and bloody...